The Theme Review Team has spent the last two months collecting data from surveys to discover common pain points people experience using the theme directory and going through the theme review process. The results of those surveys were used to create a roadmap of areas to focus on.
In yesterday’s meeting, the Theme Review Team voted and those in attendance unanimously approved the roadmap.
One of the key parts to the roadmap is creating groups with a scope of responsibilities. The groups include:
- Directory
- Documentation
- Tools
- Reviews and queues
- UX and research
Each group needs a point person who acts as the communication bridge between the group and Theme Review Team. Tammie Lister explains what the point person’s role is within a group.
This person will report weekly what is going on during the chats. They will also post on the make.blog each week about what is going on in each group. This should ensure we keep up communication and make sure things get done.
They’re not necessarily in charge of getting things done but rather, act as a facilitator to make sure the group stays on track.
One part of the roadmap that I’m interested in is the possibility of a report button added to the theme directory to allow users to report themes. If this happens, it will be interesting to see how it’s used or abused and whether it adds any additional work load to the theme reviewers.
The roadmap looks solid and shows the team is focused on improving several aspects of the Theme Directory. This is a great opportunity for new contributors to get involved with the project. If you’re interested in joining any of the groups within the Theme Review Team, please visit the #themereview channel on Slack and let the team know.
This initiative is a result of lots of feedback as well as things that the team wanted to tackle but was not sure they were empowered to do. The road map is just the first stage and all in all It is pretty exciting.